Transcriber: Ola Królikowska Reviewer: Ido Dekkers
The last time you went shopping in a grocery store,
did you stop and think about where your food came from? From a farm?
Where is it? How far away from you?
In the US, over 90 percent of lettuce is grown in just two states,
California and Arizona.
It has to be transported across the entire country
to the East Coast, where we are.
By the time we get it,
it’s no longer that fresh or nutritious anymore,
and we think about food and where we grow food,
California has the right climate for growing lettuce,
but it’ll be so nice if we can grow food anywhere, anytime,
so we can enjoy fresh local food anytime and no matter where we are.
Over 80 percent of people in the US are living in urban areas,
but not many of us think about food availability
or food safety unless something goes wrong.
At the beginning of the pandemic,
we all saw empty shelves in grocery stores.
People were stockpiling food.
Our food supply chains were fragile.
And they just couldn’t keep up with our demand.
Over the years,
we’ve also seen E. coli outbreaks leading to recalls of romaine lettuce
grown outside in soil in California.
Sometimes we also find some unpleasant surprises,
such as this fly I found in a baby spinach bag saying “thoroughly washed”.
This spinach was also grown outside in soil.
So with all these problems, can we find a way of growing food without soil?
Yes, we have, growing food without soil is a technique called hydroponics,
which combines two Greek words: “hydro”, means water, “ponos” means work or labor.
Together, it's working with water.
We can actually grow plants directly in nutrient water without soil.
This may sound counterintuitive, but plants don't need soil.
They need the water and nutrients, which we can provide to plants directly.
With hydroponics, we can reduce,
reuse and recycle our nutrient water to save precious water and reduce runoff.
In fact, hydroponics can help us save over 90 percent water
compared to traditional agriculture outside in soil.
We can grow hydroponic food anywhere anytime.
We just need to grow in the greenhouse or indoor farm.
We can control light, temperature,
humidity and nutrient water for optimal plant growth.
This is why indoor hydroponic crops have much higher yields
compared to crops grown outside in soil.
The greenhouse or indoor environment is also a physical barrier
that protects plants from natural disturbances,
such as harsh weather and pests.
And even if pests can find their way in,
we can use beneficial insects to prey on them.
This means no pesticide.
Because plants are grown under protection with no soil,
they’re clean and ready to eat. There’s no need to wash.
We can have hydroponic farms in or near the city,
so fresh vegetables can reach local consumers right after harvest.
Land in the city, though, is expensive and hard to come by,
but we can build rooftop hydroponic farms right in the city on top of buildings.
Or we can grow hydroponic food under lighting inside vacant warehouses,
also in the city.
This is indoor vertical farming where we vertically stack
hydroponic trays to save space.
Just outside the city, we can also find cheaper land to grow local food
and supply directly to people living in the city.
Nowadays, we can already see a lot of fresh hydroponic leafy greens
and tomatoes in our grocery stores nearby.
Hydroponics brings farming close to us, so we get to enjoy fresh,
local and healthy food no matter where, no matter when.
It connects us to the food we eat.
Besides supporting local hydroponic farms,
we can actually grow some hydroponic food ourselves right at home.
At the beginning of the pandemic,
I was living in an apartment and I was creating a connection to life and nature.
So I started growing hydroponic greens
on my apartment windowsill with reused plastic containers.
I found a reused tofu container to sew a lot of seeds
and insulation material called rockwool.
I watered the plants with tap water and a water-soluble fertilizer.
There was not much that I had to do to keep the plants alive.
Two weeks later, when the plants got a little bit bigger,
I moved the plants to the openings of milk bottles,
which I put on the windowsill.
This window was facing the East, so there was plenty of sunlight
in the morning for plants to grow and thrive.
It was a very simple setup. All of us can do.
It was a lot of fun to watch plants grow over time
and eventually enjoy some clean and delicious veggies
for soups and salads.
It was also very helpful for my mental well-being on the lockdown.
After I moved into a house last year,
I continued to grow hydroponic greens on my windowsill.
This time I was using a window box or a planter.
I filled the window box with nutrient water.
I also found some used styrofoam food trays
and cut small holes in them to put in small plants.
Then roots grew into water to absorb water and nutrients.
It was a very self-sufficient system
that I didn’t have to do much at all before harvesting the greens.
It was extremely low maintenance.
It was also something really nice to look at on my windowsill.
Besides window boxes and milk bottles,
I also experimented with other types of household plastic containers,
such as pickle jars and milk bottles.
It was a great way to reuse household plastic containers
and reduce plastic waste.
As an assistant professor at the University of Delaware,
I teach and research hydroponic food production in greenhouses
and indoor farms.
In my Delaware Indoor Ag Lab, or DIAL,
my team experiments with environmental factors such as light
to see how we can improve crop yield and nutritional value.
We're growing a wide range of crops, such as lettuce and peppers.
Our goal is to help hydroponic farmers grow more with less.
We're trying to find the optimal light temperature,
humidity and other conditions for these plants that we eat.
On top of that, we also work with NASA to help fine-tune how astronauts
grow hydroponic foods on the International Space Station for space exploration.
This is no longer science fiction that we saw in the movie “The Martian”.
It is reality. It's quite exciting.
We can grow hydroponic food anywhere, anytime in our home.
Greenhouses, indoor farms, the International Space Station.
We can start with something simple like this,
a DIY home hydroponic shelving unit that we can build ourselves right at home.
It’s a great way to connect with food.
Appreciate the food we eat,
teach our family and friends about food
and eventually enjoy some delicious clean
and fresh greens that we grow ourselves very proudly.
This is the ultimate farm to table experience.
Thank you.
(Applause)